A Thread on the joys of village cricket

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Rain the winner today

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Pictured Tony Horsfall now in his 58th consecutive season of cricket apparently marking his crease out or praying, take your pick, neither worked he got a duck.
Having escaped the bottom of the table this defeat and a victory of sorts for Kirkham, their opponents couldn't raise a side means next Sundays clash of the inept takes on massive proportions although the messages from our What's App group asking is there anyone who is able to bowl available does suggest a hard Sunday ahead, never mind back to the last defeat.
Esy grounsd for me barely five minutes from home, so easy missed teh turn off.
Dreadful artifical wicket, both sides were short, they had ten we had nine, we lost the toss, 11-3 didn't bode well, the captain Mr Richards steadied the ship and was over joyed to tell us afterwards he top scored with the epic score of 13, managed to scramble our way to 70 with Thomas McMurdo hitting his first ever boundary. Left arm seamer Hesmondhalgh took 5-15.
70 was never going to be enough although we got rid of their skipper having scored 154 less than he did last time, wenever really looked like taking another wicket and so a nine wicket defeat

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On a red hot day we played bottom of the league Kirkham by the end of the game we had swapped positions with them, due to an earlier swap of fixtures we had to play our home game at Kirkham but as we changed the day to Sunday it we could have actually played the game at home, but saying that we got to play at a decent ground

We won the toss and elected to bat and our openers put on 50 before Neil Hankey departed, the captain soon departed before Messers Harvey and Carter put on 60 plus, got a bit tetchy at time how you say verbals, nt bad for a clash of two teams in the bottom decision,from 121-3 wickets began to fall on a regular basis, Neil Harvey batted through 30 overs before the heat made him run himself out.
Interesting character is Neil previously played for teh club at teh time of formation 2000 left to work abroad, worked as a TV Presenter on Russia Today, had some nteresting comments about the Special One Jose.
We ended up on 188, my epic innings lasted fine balls, missed the first two, defence prod for third. Next two creamed off the middle of the bat, the first well fielded at short cover, the other hammered back at the bowler who juggled the ball before catching it, the wordds dear me were heard. Third innings on this ground third duck.

Luckily the heat had subsided but the home side started off well putting on 49 before the first wicket fell Reddy Jnr caught and Bowled by Lefty Wright. I got Butcher caught on the boundary, decent player this lad.
Took the wicket of Smith who made 64 and then the wicket of Tomlinson who went forward, backwards before walking past the ball that bowled him.
Sadly though that was our last success as Griffiths and Kilgaggan took them to victory, only four to go we have 10 players this week and we play Wrea Green who are going for promotion. Onwards and Downwards ony

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The only consolation about this is we batted first otherwise with the limited bowling attack that we had we could have been chasing well over 300, as it was the game was done and dusted in just over two hours.
Put into bat there were only two double figure .scores the rest of us contributed all of sod.
Captain Richards scored 14 including a six, manwhile hopalong loan player Marcus Webster who has been out all season with a knee injury which he had surgery on about a mnth ago, was only discharged from his Consultant the day before the game hit 20 including one six.
Wasn't easy bowling on the rock hard surface as at one end you had to bowl into a very strong breeze which rendered the use of one sightscreen obsolete due to it being a sheet. There were a couple of dodgy decisions and both umpires forgot to signal byes hence I got two more than I actually got.
Their innings lasted just over 6 overs Wham, Bam Thank you Mam, nine wicket defeat only three to go and third in the league next week

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Onwards downwards only with only two games last the position of stromgest in the league welcomes us, due to some back luck and mainly we have been pants most of the season with occasional exceptions, this was ne of those exceptions. BAE won convincingly in the end but we made them work for it and for a rare occasion we fielded a full 40 overs. Which also presents problems as the longer you are out there the more knackered you become.
At 15-3 we had them on the ropes but as always seem to be the case we come up against a decent batsman who we cannot dislodge, Muhammid Hussain in this case who stuck around for a long while for 46 buiding partnerships with those coming in later down the order, notably Thomas. We were treated to a cameo by Kuldeep Singh using only one batting glove and giving an impression of a latter day of player from the late 19th century with an extravagent swing of the bat.
Three wickets each form Wright and Conn with Dave Lever with figure of 1-15 in 10 overs.
Down to bat at seven chasing 171 expected to have a bit of a rest before putting my pads on. Fourth ball of the first over wickets gone and on go the pads, facing the leagues top wicket taker Singh who was slightly better than most we have faced this season, so we were bundled out for 46 apart from one legged Marcus Webster who made 16 it was a bit of a procession.
Strangely actually enjoyed the game mainly because it was after 5 when it finished.

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The end is almost nigh the last match is this Saturday although that could depend on the impending demise of Her Majesty.

This was a clos game although the scores do not reflect it, lost the toss and put in. A steady trickle of wickets on an odd feeling surface felt like a bed of straw, highest partnership was 13 between myself and Neil Hankey although we were helped by a shed load of wides from Oliver Szigeti, faced most of his bowling hard work batting when you don't know which area of the square he will pitch it, in my case he bowled me which reunited with earth when it hit the wicket, possible no ball for height not given. Hankey made 21 being given out caught of the arm.
Newcombe took 5-12 apparently he's only 12 We were all out for 57 about 20 runs short given what happened next.
The only innings of note from the opposition was from Chris Duffield who made 31 and saw them home. Duffers until two weeks before the season started was our Chairman and second team captain, left the club after failing to be informed that we had opened merger talks with local club Fylde.
Mistakes were made but they were not insurmountable but off he trotted, got history he disapeared half way through a season a couple of years ago
To make matters worse we dropped him three times, probably may have won the game but he saw them to victory, wasn't easy probably one of our best battling performances of the season
As stated last game this season Vernon Carus 3rds Flintoff's team none of those lads will be playing but hey we got a refurb pavillion out of it

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At about 5.15pm yours truly attempted square cut at a ball which would reach the bat for about another 20 minutes ended up spooning a catch to point, all out for 47, I also it the last boundary of our season a Lara esque cover drive.
There was a bit of Symentry to this game, the first game of last season we had a minutes silence for the Duke of Edinburgh and the last match of this season we did the same for his wife.
Lost the toss and bowled on a wicket which at one end looked like someone had gone besrserk with weed killer, odd lift and occasional grubbers. Early wicket for Dave Lever, a steady partnership betwen McCutcheon and Ahmed, until McCutcheon was out, then Ahmed was caught, one ball before he was almost in Blackpool when stumped and was given not out, understandibly there was a bit of verbals, Ahmed gave it a bit of chat to out stumper who reacted as a man of 77 should do by suggesting a bat should be wrapped around his head. He was out next ball, dolly catch but kept shouting Take it when the ball was in the air, needless to say this went down like a lead balloon.
Managed to get my traditional wicket with a pie and the lad I got out I think is the brother of Nigel Jemson of PNE and Forest fame.
We were in the game until Abdul Patel slogged everything into the middle of next week. 174 was a tall order althou he got 0 wickets Danny Carter bowled quite well for teh self appointed Number 1 spinner in the club.
Dave Lever 4 the Skipper took two, James Rawcliffe took two and went ahead of me with 14 wickets to my 13.
Would we get this total, nope steady prpcession from Pavillion to crease and back, only Carter withh 11 scored double figures. Milner, Saul and Ashworth took three wickets.
None of the Flintoff mob played and it can actually be said that apart from a couple of them they were a bunch of miserable sods

As for this season

That's all folks

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First nets of the year last night already bowled the ball of the season yea

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The season started today although we start next week Wyre's first team won by 6 wickets did notice the score after the first over Penwortham were 0-2

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So it begins again compared to last season's first game getting to 82 was an improvement and the fact we managed to bat/survive 40 overs did give us hope for the future.
Decent track at Kirkham hard underfoot but not overly quick.
Lost the toss and inserted


(Messers Hankey, Richard (Scorer) and Carter discuss how we are going to play Bazball this season

Decent start got to 20 ish before the inevitable mid order collapsed, not helped by a run out, majestic duck to start with apparenty stumped no idea whether it was so wander off. Good late order recovery by Joe Blackburn making his debut and Tom McMurdo making his highest score.
Would 82 be enough nope, Reddy and Smith made short work of our limited bowling attack and duly bopped off the runs in just over 12 overs.
Anyway not to worry new ground on Saturday darkest Rufford

Kept up my 100% record of playing in Kirkham three games three defeats and three ducks.

Kirkham RGS


Lines everywhere

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Been a bit lax on this harder to motivate myself to actually put reports on anyway we've played 6 and bizarre as it might seem we've won three, today beat the top of the league Vernon Carus.
During conversation apparently we were contacted about the second series of Flintoff's field of dreams hing with waif and strays playing cricket oweverFlintoff's car crash has put this on the back burner

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As you can tell this rather got put on the back burner during last season, missed the last nine games through injury which in a way was a blessing because wasn't enjoying playing, the games we played were dire especially the one against Blackpool 4ths.
We won against a side who had players who could barely play the game add into the fact we were on ad off for rain about 7 or 8 times, it was a truly miserable event.
Nets start this weekend but I'm off to Leeds on Sunday so will miss them and on March 7 am lined up to say goodbye to another toenail which is a three month recovery period which takes us to mid June and then it could be can I be bothered time at the moment the answer is NO

[lancsdes]

Comes to us all Admin. My last three or four years of regular hillwalking / mountaineering were not enjoyable with lots of niggles and although 60 was early to give up in that field , I knew it was the end.

Not in any way, comparing my ability on the mountains with Michael Atherton’s ability as a cricketer but similarity in that I don’t miss it despite all the great years I had. Atherton said that he was in so much discomfort in his last few years that he doesn’t miss it at all. I’ve always felt that he enjoyed his broadcasting and writing more than he enjoyed playing, for all that he was such a formidable and courageous bat.

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Funny club been in touch tonight about subs for nest season